Holy Conjunctivitis!

Pink eye a.k.a Conjunctivitis

Kiki has Pink Eye! Last night her eye was goopy and after wiping it every 20 minutes, it dawned on me that the boogers coming out of her eyeball are not normal.

I have a terrifying early childhood memory of my mom rushing to get my older brother to school and my little brother is in his car seat crying because his eyes were glued shut from the eye goop drying and binding his eyelashes together. My mom didn't have time to wash it away in the early morning rush to get her 5 kids into the car so she could get the oldest to school.
I can still picture my brother crying because it fucking traumatized me. Much like a scene from a movie where a prisoner is being tortured by its captor, no one wants to see a toddler wailing because his eyes are glued shut.
Last night, while I was going to sleep I worried Kiki would wake up and be terrified she was blind if her eyes crust shut, so I sat awake for a long time waiting for her to call out to me. By the time I fell asleep it was middle of the night. Shortly after I drifted off Kiki shouted for me. I came running with a bowl of warm water and a wash cloth. Her eyes weren't glued shut, and when I tried to wipe away what little crusts were there she screamed, "I want to sleep!"
My daughter woke me up this morning by poking me in an eyelid with a finger she was probably using to rub her highly contagious eye minutes before. After four hours at urgent care we got her diagnosis and prescription for eye drops.
The line at the pharmacy was one where the distraction of an iPhone saved me from going completely ballistic by watching someone do their job at a snail's pace. Maybe the pharmacist was pissed she had to work International Women's Day, so she decided to do the minimum required without there being an uprising, and all the customers storm the storage cabinets for the medication.

I couldn't get too worked up over the line because I was thinking of how I was going to get the drops into my daughter's eyes. That involved pinning her down, and holding her eyeball open. She was screaming and crying, and I was scared I would stab her in the eye with the eye dropper. It was as horrifying as watching my little brother in his car seat.

The silver lining to her catching conjunctivitis; we got out of all social obligations this weekend!! We also did a disinfecting deep clean on the house, and finally planted our garden. A garden the kids will dismember one flower at a time when my back is turned.
I can kind of understand now why kids do things that seem psychopathic, like stomping on flowers, or squeezing a worm in half. Its retribution. The weak picking on the weaker, a downward spiral of violent actions.
I hope the eye drops go better tomorrow, but the flowers, are much more hopeful.

Butt Licking Mountain Lions

Summer is upon us!

Last summer I took the kids to the fish hatchery for story time. The National Forrest Service runs the hatchery and they raise salmon. When we first started going, it was so much fun. Only a few kids came to story time then, but some freaking mom blogs were really plugging the shit out of this place, and it turned into a chaotic mad house. It became overrun, and the story time, followed by a walk out to see the fish with the Ranger, was not fun anymore.

One of the last times we went to the hatchery’s story time the ranger read excerpts from a nature book that is geared toward eight year olds, not a group of toddlers. The book’s theme was how nature can be disgusting. The ranger pulled out a turkey vulture puppet and read the excerpt on turkey vultures, how they eat the dead salmon that die when the water dries up. It seemed interesting and not too gross.

Then she read another excerpt about mountain lions. She informed the little kids that when a baby mountain lion is born it doesn’t poop until its mom licks its butthole enough to bring on the doodoo. I don’t think any of the kids understood what the fuck this kooky lady was talking about.

This concept of “gross” (as in butt licking is gross, especially when its from a familial relation) is not really something a toddler can grasp. They don’t really understand the need to wash their hands, or use toilet paper, so a story about a mom licking it’s baby’s butt to make it poop would not make them think, “gross,” but likely think “moms lick buttonholes?” or maybe, "I didn't know buttonholes get licked?"

Kiki didn’t know what the fuck the lady was talking about because she stole the turkey vulture puppet and was dancing with it in the corner. My friend and I just looked at each other giving a WTF expression; nostrils flared and gigantic eye roll.

This weekend is going to be 75 degrees and that means the hell temperatures of Sacramento summer are just around the corner. The vultures will be feasting on those salmon that never made it to the lake, and all the baby mountain lion butt holes have been licked into activity.

It's funny how, after going to the hatchery 20 times, I can't recall any fun facts about the salmon, but I will probably always remember the butt hole licking tidbit. When I am 123 and living on my compound, I will be sitting in my wheel chair watching the Golden Girls, probably unable to recognize my own children, but I will still have this fucking piece of information imprinted in my brain. 
My daughter will look at me confused, as I call to her, "Dorothy, have you heard about the mountain lions?"

My future (I wish)

Tiger Alicia Sniffing Out Xanax

Roar! Tiger mom ambitions.

Lately, I am on a quest for Xanax. This quest for anxiety reduction pills is actually giving me more anxiety. I am going to start a job interview process and it has me stressing the fuck out. So, I would like to take a pill that will guarantee I do not choke.

These last couple years at home with my kids have been a blast, and it has allowed me to establish which kinds of jobs would be fitting for the type of work life balance I want to maintain. All the jobs I held prior to wiping noses, and booties, as well as fostering and stimulating a young vibrant mind, were very structured corporate jobs. 

I would go into the office in the morning, and leave in the evening Monday through Friday. A very common schedule, that seems to work well enough. However, it is not the environment where I could say, “I am leaving to go to my kids’ soccer game, and I am going to finish my work up later, at home while I watch Real Housewives and eat girls scout cookies.”

When going back to work, I will maintain an active presence in my kids day to day life, so I don't feel like our relationship is spent doing grocery shopping, laundry and cleaning on Saturdays and Sundays.

I thought about the best job ever for a parent, with children they still want to chauffer around and stand over their shoulder while helping them do their homework. It is being a professor.

I didn’t come up with the idea on my own; becoming a mom/professor was advice from the craziest involved mom, Amy Chua, the author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Her reasoning is that the flexibility of a professor’s schedule allows a parent to be around during the time a child is awake, rather than arriving home from the office an hour before the kids go to bed, and heading out the door shortly after the kids wake up in the morning. Teaching night classes, working Saturdays, as well as being able to do a portion of work from home, allows for more time to be active in the kids’ day to day life. In the Tiger Mom's case, she was able to dedicate her time at home to developing her children into musical geniuses. Her tactics were sometimes questionable, and as much as she talked about how her commitment to her kids was about personal sacrifice, it really was all about making herself feel accomplished.
I am nervous to ask my doctor for Xanax because she is a fit thirty something woman, and I am worried she will tell me that taking Xanax is for pussies and I need to stop being a whiney bitch. The Tiger Mom never mentioned if she takes medication to assist on her quest to greatness. I would not be surprised if her kids are popping anti-anxiety pills. After reading the part of the book where her second child falls into such a deep depression from feeling lack of control in her life that she cuts all her hair off, I was about to shed a tear thinking, this girl is going to be a little fucked up for the rest of her life.

I just need to suck it up and go ask my doctor. Maybe her mom was a Tiger Mom. She is a doctor, which takes a lot of dedication and hard work. Her mom had to have been giving her some gentle nudges toward her accomplishments. Hopefully, they were nudges with some cruel and demeaning undertones, leaving my doctor with the kind of fractured inner self where she would say, "I get you, girl. Xanax, coming up!"

Hipster Babies Love Wellingtons

Insisting on wearing bikini as comfy clothes for popcorn and TV.

Fucking hipster babies love Wellingtons. I suppose its because they are so free spirited they want to be ready in case they stumble upon a mud puddle. They wear their rubber boots with shorts, pajamas, or burqas. Sure, they look like they stumbled out of the asylum, but it is really cute.

Go! Hipster babies! Go!

Alarmingly aware of how my excessive photo taking is slowly nibbling away at her free spirit

Drinking and Social Media

Eyes on the road

Social media is my enemy when I am drinking because I think I am hilarious, and should let the world know. I am on stage, and because no one is actually watching, I have the courage to act out the one-woman show going in my head.

Sunday, I watched some movie on the couch about abortion. I woke up in the morning and found I wrote 6 tweets about the movie. Mostly all of it was incoherent. I think I was talking about how I am Catholic and a believer in Women’s rights. It was a fucking mess.

You know when you pass a drunken bum stumbling down the street having a conversation to himself that is so captivating, the rest of the world doesn’t seem to exist? Well, I am the social media equivalent.

I am so used to embarrassing myself that I really don’t let that stuff bother me too much. Like RuPaul says, “It’s none of my business what other people think about me.” However, I do some pretty cringe worthy things where I embarrass myself to myself. First of all, I can start down a trail of poetry, which is undoubtedly shit, shit, shit. The next day, when I see the mess of words sitting in the notepad or on my laptop, I just destroy it. I can’t deal with the embarrassment of even reading it.

I know that I get serious cases of sloppies because I can sympathize for the actor or figurehead who stumbles from his or her pedestal after a night of debauchery caught on camera. After hearing the scandalous story of Mel Gibson going on a drunken tirade through Malibu talking shit about Jewish people, my reaction wasn’t, “He is a racist scumbag.” It was, “Yikes, that shit turned for the very very worst.”

I doubt he is a card carrying racist, he probably had some question of the unknown, and maybe planted a seed of thought in his head, and then in a drunken rampage, took on a persona completely unlike his own, and sadly for him, it was all on candid camera.

I guess this is why so many people who live in the limelight are sober because the chances of going off the rails, and coming off as a racist psycho is very much in the cards, and that shit will ruin their career. Look at Mel, he was passed up on being in the Hangover 2 because of his drunken rampage, however, Mike Tyson, a convicted wife-beating rapist, was a perfectly suitable actor for the first movie in the series.

So when it gets to the point in the night where I think I should write a letter to an old friend, smoke cigarettes on the couch, listen to an old album while crying, and then watch a movie while tweeting out the minute-by-minute thoughts in my head, I can be thankful I have the freedom to go on a personal party without anyone watching.

I wish I was the kind of drunk who loved to laugh and then eat lots of food and fall asleep after thoughtfully using the potty, but I am not. When my star gets a little brighter, I am going to have to invest in a babysitter to see that I refrain from any social media. Hopefully, I will become more responsible. That’s on my list of things I visualize at night. It comes after winning the lotto because I got to get rich and famous before I start worrying about how to act when rich and famous.

Breaking the cycle

Riding a white rabbit

The Gospel of RHOBH filling in for Mom

The company I keep. Sometimes, the inmates run the asylum.

I am going through an introspective time. My mom left for Vietnam and I am living life how it was intended; not being on my cell phone during every moment of down time. I always call my mom when I get in the car, and we carry on a conversation we started three years ago. Its mostly a back and forth of narrating our activities for the day. I can tell when my mom is surfing the web, because her response is always, “Soooo… What are you up to?” Sometimes we will just sit on the phone in silence, until someone gets to a point of boredom where they just hang up the line.

I always call my mom when I am driving around. Any trip literally paves the way for a 5 minute chat; picking up daughter, quick trip to the store, or heading to the park. Listening to my mom tell me about the clothes she bought on the websites she religiously reads, or how she thinks my brothers and sisters should be living their lives, or any news on a relative makes me so happy. Maybe it is because she is the most adult conversation I have throughout the week.

With my mom in Vietnam, I am confronted with silence, and it’s a welcoming loneliness because I am having some self realizations. (Queue the BAM!) Aside from realizing I should allow myself time to think instead of jumping on the phone whenever I have a dull moment, I realized I need to take an extended break from alcohol before I fuck my life up.

I have been having too many, “Alicia, Party for 1!”’s lately. There is a big difference between having “Party for 1” every couple months, to having “Party for 1” once a week. And because I am falling into the latter category I have to take a sabbatical. I probably am taking my party times so serious because I am in the company of youngsters all the time, although that seems like the worst reason ever.

I watch The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills because I really do have panache for guilty pleasures. Although, I do love the show, I am terribly embarrassed when I watch it, and can only do it alone. If someone comes in while I am watching, I have to pause immediately or turn it off, because I don’t want anyone to see me giggling in delight at a bunch of women acting like mean girls.

Last night’s episode took the drama to a new level, and confirmed any doubts about the show being completely staged. The addition of two soap opera actresses brought on the first head scratch, but the lunacy of wine glass throwing and going after someone’s throat, made me side eye, “Do fancy ass Ladies really behave this way?”

The most normal one of the bunch is Yolanda. She is practically perfect. I think she is the main reason I watch the show because she is like Oprah; full of motivating and positive enlightenment.

Yolanda seems to stay above the fray, and dispenses the best advice. She told Brandi Glanville to do a cleanse to help her cool her jets. Yolanda said she understands how Brandi likes to get crazy, but that having 2 young kids and with her career taking off, now is not the time to be getting crazy.

I was sitting on my couch, and looking at the TV thinking, “Yolanda, you are talking to me.” So I did a cleanse, and really did feel good afterwards. After going on a mission around Sacramento to get a glass of the coveted Pliney The Younger, I can say I have pretty much filled any unfulfilled need, and a long break would be welcome.

Beer snob.

Hopefully, when my mom returns from Vietnam, and I tell her my newfound realization, she isn’t surfing the web. I’d hate to go through the explanation twice because she is looking at shoes online. If I do, and the chances are pretty good I will have to, then I will simply preface it with, “Mom, Yolanda, my mom while you were away, taught me a thing or two.”

Day drinking does allow great opportunities to tan. NO! Go power walking instead.